An Analysis of Academic Deans' Leadership Orientation and their Work-Related Stress

Summary

This work represents an analysis of academic deans' leadership orientation and their work-related stress.

In universities worldwide, deans are positioned midway in the academic hierarchy. They are challenged to serve as conduits between the upper management and their unit’s academic personnel. They also have to negotiate both the pressures of performing their managerial functions and the demands of being academic scholars. The dichotomous nature of deans’ position may even create extremely upsetting problems. One such problem is deans’ high level of work-related stress which can, over time, have both personal and professional consequences by adversely affecting their health and impacting the quality of their administrative performance. It is, therefore, important for deans and the educational institutions they work for to understand the relationship between diverse leadership orientations and work-related stress. Using Bolman and Deal’s (2008) leadership frames as its template, this study conducted a survey of 101 academic deans from five state Universities in Region IV-A, Philippines. Analysis revealed that the deans subscribed most to the human resource leadership frame, followed by the symbolic and structural frames, and, lastly, the political frame. Regression analysis disclosed that the symbolic frame significantly decreased administrative-task stress. Thus, it can be inferred that strengthening the symbolic frame could be a gateway for academic leadership to moderate administrative-task stress.

Regression analysis disclosed that the symbolic frame significantly decreased administrative-task stress. Thus, it can be inferred that strengthening the symbolic frame could be a gateway for academic leadership to moderate administrative-task stress.